Boycott BP: The Station Owners Part 2

Readers of this blog will know about my BP Boycott. My previous post went into a lot of the why’s, of the Boycott. I addressed a major criticism with a BP Boycott, which is how it will affect the Independent BP Station Owners. It has been suggested by various articles (See Newsweek), and even from people on the street when I protest that Boycotting the BP stations only hurts the independent owners, and not BP, and thus taking the whole point away from the BP Boycott.

I considered this then I saw this pie chart printed on another gas stations pump. Note where this information is coming from. It is from the NACS, the National Association of Convenience and Petroleum Retailer. The idea behind the this chart from the gas station retail industry is to say:

Don’t blame the gas station for the high gas prices. It is not our fault because we do not make much money.

Lets look at these numbers:

58% for the crude oil (Which will go to BP)
17% for refining (Also going to BP)
14% in taxes (to pay for the up keep on road we drive on)
9% retail and distribution cost with %20 of that going to credit card companies
1% Lastly, the station owner will take in only %1 income from the sale of gas

So this means that of the $20 I spent today to fill up at a non-BP station, the owner takes in $.20.

So really the station owners do not make their money from the gas. They make way more off of the slushees, chips, beer, wine, lottery tickets, soda, candy, cigarette, ice cream, pork rinds, and hot dogs etc…

BP or other gas companies by contrasts will take in %75 from the sale. In the case of my last gas purchase $15 of $20. Of course not all of that is profit, but the record profits that all oil companies have seen come from these numbers.

And how did oil companies like BP make record profit and keep as much of my $15 dollars as possible? Their profit comes from in part from saving money by not spending it on safety R&D, and by hiring lobbyist to pay off politician to keep the profits coming.

So if all the oil companies are lax on safety why demonize BP right?

Because of the oil spill disaster in the gulf, and BP as far as the US is concern, is the worse oil company by far. The economic and environmental impact for the US will far out shines all other oil companies.

So if you are mad at BP, but do not want to hurt the gas station owners get your gas at another station, and buy your convenience stuff at an independent BP stations if you must. But won’t that just hurt the other gas station whose company did not create the worse environmental disaster in US history?

2 responses to “Boycott BP: The Station Owners Part 2”

Wouldn’t just be easier to convert to electric? I mean after the spill is finally capped and cleaned up, there will be another disaster and a different company will be to blame and then we all have to start up the blogs and boycotts all over again.